As a son of drug-addicted parents growing up on the streets of Salt Lake City and running with gangs, Schuffenhauer would not have become the man he is today without the help of good role models.

“I had people that I looked up to along the way,” said Schuffenhauer.

In junior high school, Schuffenhauer decided to go out for track and field because he was “really good at running from cops,” jumping fences and throwing mud pies, which he equated to the shot put and javelin events.

His attitude kept him out of sports that year, and he ended up having to do community service – cleaning the toilets and taking out the trash at the junior high during the summer. The experience motivated him to raise his grades.In high school, he was asked if he wanted to be a decathlete. When he was told that decathletes were the best athletes in the world, he was sold on the idea. Schuffenhauer’s high school coaches convinced him that he could go to college because the colleges would give him a scholarship based on his athletic abilities. Otherwise, he would not have been able to afford it.

His college coaches said that he should go to the Olympics.

“My goal and my dream was to become an Olympian,” said Schuffenhauer. He trained for the 1992 and 1996 Olympics but didn’t make it. Training for the 2000 Olympics, Schuffenhauer was ranked third in the world.

“I was performing like a rockstar in all my meets,” said Schuffenhauer.

The second event at a Brigham Young University qualifying event, he blew out his ankle. Thinking that his Olympic dreams were over, he went home.

He learned about bobsledding in Park City. He trained with one of the U.S. teams and one day, he got a call asking if he would be willing to go down a run with the team. He jumped at the chance.

“My first opportunity to go down on a bobsled was to make the World Cup in bobsled,” said Schuffenhauer, “and I had no idea what was going on.”

Todd Hayes asked Schuffenhauer to join his team for the Olympics, but Schuffenhauer hesitated because he didn’t want to leave his team.

“This is your Willy Wonka ticket to achieve your dreams,” said Schuffenhauer about how his teammates encouragement to join Hayes’ team.

In the same city where he grew up on the streets, eating out of the trash cans and getting in trouble for stealing, Schuffenhauer was part of the bobsled team that won a silver medal in the 2002 Olympics.​“If I can do it, you can do it, too,” said Schuffenhauer.

This article was originally published at examiner.com. Links have been update Jan 2017.